Kiss Cam
by miss.conductx
Summary: Oneshot. Ash and Dawn are watching and supporting May at one of her Contests, when suddenly they get caught in an unlikely predicament... Pearlshipping, Ash/Satoshi x Dawn/Hikari.


**Kiss Cam**

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Pokemon. And frankly, I never will. **

The whole arena seemed to hold its breath as pictures flashed on the screen, one by one. After each picture appeared, a section would clap, whoop, and holler; obviously rooting for that person to pull through to the next round. Take, for example, a red-headed kid that appeared on the screen. A whole row stood up and cheered, and most of those people were probably the kid's family. In his introduction, it was stated that it was his first contest, and so naturally the family _had_ to come watch and support. It was amazing how he made it through to the battle round; beginner's luck, perhaps?

After him, a different picture flashed next to his. It was a pretty brunette, with her hair in two low ponytails with a red bandanna wrapped around her head. The cheers for her were loud, but if people looked for the source, they wouldn't have found a whole row standing up; there were really only three grinning people with their eyes fixated on the screen. One of those people was a familiar face to the crowd: Dawn, a perky and optomistic blue-haired Coordinator. With great difficulty and indecision, she had chosen to skip this Contest and train her Pokèmon more, just so she'd be perfectly ready for the next Contest. Sitting on one side of Dawn was a deeply tanned teenager, who seemed to be infatuated with one of the judges, Nurse Joy, because every time he glanced at her he would become slack-jawed and dazed. Frequently Dawn had to punch him in the arm to keep him focused on the Contest, not the judge.

"Brock!" she said, glaring at him. "This is not the time to ogle Nurse Joy. If you want to do that, Ash and I will desert you at a Pokèmon Center. And I'm not kidding! Right, Ash?"

She was addressing a boy with unruly black hair that was kept semi-contained under a cap. It looked like he had been zapped by the Pikachu sitting on his lap.

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. She's not kidding! We'll leave you there if we have to!" he agreed, still clapping and cheering. The brunette that had been shown on the screen was May, a friend who had traveled with Ash and Brock while they journeyed through Hoenn. She and Dawn had gotten along well, and Dawn fawned over May's Skitty.

Speaking of Pokemon, there was a whole gang of them sitting on, next to, or in front of the group: A cute Piplup, whose color almost matched its owner's hair; A Buneary, who was making googly-eyes at the awkward and embarrassed Pikachu; An adorable little Happiny, who was busy throwing an Ambipom up and down; And a Swinub, who was targeting a man's cheeseburger in the row below them. Fortunately, before the Swinub could do anything, Dawn stopped it and said exasperatedly, "Swinub, you can't be hungry _already?_ I gave you the whole batch of Poffin I made, and May was kind enough to give you some Pokèblocks!"

"May had barely enough to give her own Pokèmon!" Ash added, finally sitting down. His hands were red and numb from clapping too much, and were now shaking them wildly in the air to get the circulation back in them.

Dawn stood up again. "I guess I'm going to have to go get something for that little glutton over there," she sighed. "Anybody want anything while I'm gone?"

"No," Brock said distractedly. Now there was an Officer Jenny standing near one of the arena's entrances; poor Brock, he knows he has no chance with any of them, but he tries his luck anyways. And, as luck would have it, none of them would accept his advances, and if they did… well, a horribly unlucky situation would come up and Brock would have to leave. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be-but don't tell Brock that.

"Ash?" Dawn extended her offer to him. He shook his head, but then frowned.

"Don't go!" he said suddenly, and yanked her down.

Surprised, Dawn yanked her wrist from his warm hands and rubbed it. "Why?" she asked in earnest.

Rolling his eyes like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world, he said slowly, "Because you're going to buy everything that looks good, but then end up not eating it all, and then _we'll_ have to eat it. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach, I swear."

"And what's wrong with that?" Dawn smiled. "Besides, I'm getting food for _Swinub_, remember?" she pointed out. "He'll probably eat all the food before I can announce I'm back."

"Still," Ash insisted. "I know you'll do _something_ while we're not there with you."

"So come with me," she suggested. It sounded like she was saying it more to Ash than Brock, but… nah. It's not like she liked Ash better or anything. It's just that he was more… oh, forget it. Dawn's emotions are too complicated to explain. It was probably just a girl thing.

Ash whined. "But I'm too lazy to get up."

"You lazy Miltank." Dawn sat down again and crossed her legs huffily. Swinub groaned and threw Ash a spiteful look, as if it knew that he was the reason it wasn't getting any food.

Ash, noticing her sour mood, tried to make up for his actions. "You _know_ they always have something fun going on during intermission," he said matter-of-factly. "Remember? They have a competition or something on the stage, while you guys are getting ready to battle."

"That's true…" Dawn half-smiled. "But I'm just worried Swinub is going to devour someone else's food, and they wouldn't know what hit them!"

The two eyed the Swinub, who grinned at them innocently. Brock's Happiny then decided she had enough of testing her strength on Ambipom, who looked relieved. She was starting to get motion-sick. That relief was short-lived, however: Happiny then grabbed Swinub and juggled it and Ambipom together. Brock fidgeted nervously, watching Happiny, afraid she'd mess up and drop the Pokemon on her head.

"Well, I guess Swinub's occupied for the moment," Ash laughed. Suddenly Dawn clapped and jumped up and down.

"I love it when they do this!" she squealed. Ash furrowed his eyebrows and looked at her as if she's gone nuts.

"Do what?"

It was Dawn's turn to look at Ash strangely; she put her hands on his head and turned it in the general direction of the huge screen.

"The Kiss Cam!" she said excitedly. Hearts made a frame around the screen, and currently the camera was roaming around the arena, searching for unlucky (or lucky) people to capture on the screen.

With a wave of nervousness and light-headedness, Ash understood what the Kiss Cam was. A camera sought out a couple, and when the camera landed on them, they had to give each other a kiss. He had nearly become the victim of one while watching one of the contests in Hoenn, but luckily the camera swerved and targeted the couple next to him. Ash nearly had a heart-attack, because he _really_ wasn't ready to give _anyone_ a kiss yet. He thought he had heard May sigh disappointedly when the camera moved away, but brushed it off and never spoke of the incident again.

"Ah," he said, trying not to sound panicky, "I have to go to the restroom. 'Scuse me."

"Oh no you don't!" Dawn said firmly, and yanked him back down into the seat. "If I can't get food, you can't go to the restroom. It won't kill you to wait a couple minutes."

Her attention turned back onto the screen, and laughed maniacally as the camera landed on an elderly couple, who gave each other a longer-than-expected kiss. The crowd clapped and roared with laughter. Ash sunk down on his seat, depressed and quite nervous. _Don't let the camera land on me,_ he prayed.

Meanwhile, Brock was waving erratically towards the judges. Ash looked at his friend, and said bluntly, "What the heck are you doing?"

Nurse Joy had caught Brock waving, and was now trying to figure out what he wanted. Brock looked pleased.

"Oh," Ash practically had an epiphany. "You're trying to get Nurse Joy to come up here and get next to you just in case the camera came here. Well, good luck with that," he snorted.

Suddenly Dawn gasped. "Ash," she whispered, sounding a little panicked herself.

"What?" he threw popcorn into the air and caught it neatly in his mouth. He glanced at her, and then looked at the screen. His face went white; and he knew it went white, because it was there on the screen, next to an equally pale looking Dawn. Ash raised his eyes to the heavens. _Thanks a LOT,_ he glared.

The guy in front of him looked back and grinned. "Kiss! Kiss!" he chanted. The whole row started doing it, then the whole section, and before they knew it, the whole arena.

"KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS!"

Buneary looked thrilled, and grabbed Pikachu and planted one right on him. Brock facepalmed.

Dawn and Ash looked at each other, forgetting about their predicament for just a second, and shared a laugh. Then two people above them forced their heads together and they were caught in a full-on liplock. Everyone cheered, and the two people who forced them together took a few bows. The crowd didn't stop cheering when they realized the two teens were still together and relishing every moment.

They separated, and Ash received many claps on the back. Both of their faces were bright red, and Brock whispered, "About time!"

Dawn and Buneary looked at each other in embarrassment; they still couldn't comprehend that they had kissed their respective crushes… and Buneary did it completely on accident.

~xox~

"So I saw your little predicament on the screen," May smiled, twirling her newly-won ribbon around in her hands. They were visiting her backstage after the Contest, as suggested by Dawn. "What was it like?"

Dawn and Ash blushed furiously, and refused to answer.

"Meanies," May stuck her tongue out. "I remember when I _almost_ got caught with Ash; remember, Ash? You looked like you were about to faint."

Dawn looked surprised, and said, a little indignant, "Why didn't you ever tell me about that?"

"Didn't think it was important," he mumbled.

"Oh, his face was priceless," May laughed. "Like a deer caught in headlights. He dashed out and didn't come back for 15 minutes."

Then she pulled Dawn away and demanded a full play-by-play account of what happened.

"Well," Brock grinned at Ash, once they were alone. "Aren't you glad you didn't leave?"

Ash pondered this for a moment, and then said finally, "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

_A/N: The idea came into my head when I was at a hockey game, and they did the Kiss Cam feature on the jumbo-tron (a huge screen in the middle of the arena). I thought, "Wouldn't this be cute if it happened to Ash and Dawn?" and voila! This one-shot was born. It's a unique way to get your first kiss. Hope I did okay! _


End file.
